no, we weren't trying to get pregnant.
yes, we were actively preventing.
no, this doesn't mean that we aren't out of our minds excited.
no, this doesn't mean that we think our child was an accident. God created it for peet's sake!

ok, phew. now that that's out of the way...

there are obviously some unique feelings and emotions that come along with a surprise pregnancy. particularly if it's your first. and particularly if you have only been married a year and a half and you happen to love it and selfishly want a lot more time just the two of you before having to take a second (and maybe even harder) lesson in dying to self.

we found out march 20, thirty minutes before a bunch of students were heading over to our home for small group. i was a bit "tardy," and feeling particularly nervous about it. adam got home from work, handed me the tests, and our conversation went like this,

"i don't think you are pregnant."
"me either."
[hug]
"do you need to pee?"
[chug a glass of water]
"yep, ok, be right back..."

every other test i'd ever taken was negative. so we were used to this routine. but this time my heart stopped when i realized that there was a second pink line. there was never a second pink line. a second pink line means, gulp,

"adam....it says...i, i, i aaaammm"...(as i start to wail).

i'll never forget how calm adam was in the moment. or how many times i went from fits of laughter straight into gushing tears and then back to laughter again. we were digesting all of the emotion of deciding to start trying and successfully getting pregnant in one fell swoop. i can't promise they were all tears of joy in that first moment. or if any of them were. mostly, they were tears of fear and laughs of "what the heck how did this happen????"

about fifteen minutes later we had to shut it all off and pretend like our lives hadn't just been rocked. after small group, i just remember collapsing with adam. and while there were a thousand thoughts and fears and emotions running through my head, the one i remember the most was this,

"wow, God. this was you."

and to realize that something that happens in your life was so clearly the work of God, is pretty humbling. and it made me realize that this is probably true even of the things i felt that i had been in control of.

while we were busy preventing, God was busy creating. and he had this time picked out for this kid long before we were saying "i do."

and so,

this surprise pregnancy really feels like the most intentional thing God has ever called us to do.

ps, what was finding out like for you? have you ever had a surprise baby? did you feel as emotionally bipolar as i did?

8 comments:

great post! when we found out i showed Robert the result. It was a plus sign with positive written under it. Robert said "does plus positive mean we are pregnant" ha, yes of course it does. So happy for you and like i said, this baby was planned, even if you did not plan it:)

Love the look on your face in the photo, and the words reflect it perfectly. Once I heard a person give testimony that God had shown her that she, "a mistake", was no mistake: she saw a picture in her head of the finger of God directing the exact sperm to the exact egg, to make her. God's finger is delicate and powerful.Beautiful last sentence. Hang on to it.

Congratulations!! I recently found out about my little surprise. We really haven't told anyone yet. This is our second child, but I just started a new job after two years of not working to be home with my little girl. I felt the same things you did when I took the test. I know God put me in this job and He also put this blessing into my body and His timing is always perfect.

ELISE!!!! Congrats, congrats, congrats!! Yep, Soren was a surprise! I cried and laughed and cried and laughed. I was home alone when I found out and I just wandered around the house laughing and crying. It was definitely God's timing and it's fun to see how that has continued to play out even now, 5 year later.

i never knew that about soren...or maybe i did a long time ago and somehow forgot? how encouraging to hear that your reaction was so similar, and that i'm not totally crazy. it's hard to know what to feel in that moment...especially when logistics and timing and plans start running through your mind at a million miles a minute! thanks for your comment friend. :)